


Beyond Capable

by Marmarhargreeves



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: ADHD Diego, Diego centric, Executive Dysfunction, Gen, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Good Brother Klaus Hargreeves, Light Angst, Sibling Bonding, they r all good boys ..., this is the fluffiest thing I’ve written tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmarhargreeves/pseuds/Marmarhargreeves
Summary: Diego’s struggling with this damn paper. But he gets help from the best tutors around.





	Beyond Capable

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! I had a real tough time w my executive dysfunction the other night and just needed to uhhhh project onto my angel. This is just my experience w my ADD and how it affects me but it isn’t universal!! Also - I worked as a special ed tutor for a year and a half and sorta incorporated that in as well. I hope u enjoy !!!

Diego tightened his grip on his pencil, the puny piece of wood snapping in half in his hand. That was the ninth one in a span of thirty minutes, so you can obviously see how productive this study session was going. The Hargreeves siblings had their History book report due in a few days. If the intense berating he endured from Sir Hargreeves due to his his last grade told him anything, its that he had to do better. Be better. He didn’t want to be manhandled and locked up again.

 

But he just couldn’t get his brain to zero in and focus. It’s the most simple thing: You sit down. You open the book. You read it. Easy as that - one, two, three and you’re done. Ta da! But that wasn’t the case for Diego. It never has been. Five and Ben can go through books like nothing; it’s as easy and mindless as breathing for those boys. Vanya wasn’t as avid of a reader, but she certainly excelled in her studies. Allison was a solid B student, not too much of an overachiever when it came to academics. However she could easily be an A student if she wanted. Luther was, of course, the perfect golden boy. Perfect scores, perfect performances, the oh so perfect soldier. Even Klaus, the boy is seemingly nowhere and everywhere at once, was able to pull A’s out of his ass with little to no effort. The lanky kid was able to soak up knowledge like a sponge.

 

Diego, on the other hand, could read an entire page of a textbook and not process a single thing that he read. He would reread it again and again, but to no avail. He physically could not retain the information in front of him, especially when it’s a topic he has little to no interest in. But if you put Muhammad Ali’s biography in front of him? He could get through that sucker in thirty minutes flat. The American Revolution, unfortunately, did not have the same effect.

 

He took a deep breath and blew a raspberry, leaning so far back in his chair that the two front legs were in the air. Diego ran his hand down is face, trying to muster up the energy to attempt to read the textbook yet again. You see, he’s played this game far too many times. At this point he’s not sure why he’s even still trying. It’s always the same result. It doesn’t matter how much he tries, how much he “applies himself” like Sir Reginald always tells him he needs to do. It doesn’t matter how many times he recites the same passage over and over, it never sticks. Things never process like they should.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring blankly at the wall, lost in his thoughts before he heard a three soft knocks on the door. Ben.

 

“Uh, it’s unlocked.” Diego called, swishing his body forward so all four legs of his chair were planted on the floor.

 

Ben slowly opened the door, a sly smile on his face and gave a small wave with Klaus in tow right behind him. This wasn’t an unfamiliar scenario, the two of them sneaking off into his room. But it was designated study hours? Something they, well Ben, took seriously.

 

“What’s up?” Diego stood briefly and spun the chair around before sitting back down and crossing his arms on the backrest.

 

The two brothers plopped themselves on the bed, shoulder to shoulder.

 

“How’s the book report comin?” Klaus pointed at the book behind Diego, his eyes eventually falling on the pile of broken pencils on his desk. Ah, yep. He could clearly see how productive the last hour has been.

 

Diego cleared his throat, adverting his gaze to the floor. “It’s going.”

 

“I know you didn’t do hot on the last one...” Klaus trailed, glancing over to Ben. He mouthed “help me”, his eyes frantic. The shorter boy rolled his eyes, but he knew he was better at this sort of thing. Support and all.

 

Diego immediately stiffened at the statement, his face getting hot. He knew it was no secret he wasn’t the smartest one, far from it. Diego knew the six siblings all watched as Reggie dragged the hit out the room and down the stairs. They all heard the desperate, inconsolable promises he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep, the pure panic in his voice.

 

“What Klaus means is,” Ben started, his voice gentle, “We want to help. I already finished the project last week and per usual, Klaus here won’t start it until probably the night before. We have a few days until it’s due and you’d be surprised at how much you can do in 72 hours!” Ben gave a small chuckle in attempt to light the mood. Didn’t work as well as he planned.

“But we just uh,” he swallowed, “we don’t want to see you get in trouble again.”

 

Diego finally looked up, his eyes flicking between his two brothers seated in front of him. They had matching smiles on their face, both looking a little too eager as they awaited his response.

 

“Are you sure?” Diego’s voice was unusually quiet, “I’m uh. Not good at this stuff. It may take a while.”

 

“Dear brother, we came prepared!” Klaus whipped around and yanked the big duffle bag from behind him and onto their laps.

 

“This,” Klaus unzipped the top, grabbing at the contents inside, “will keep us busy.”

 

He pulled out an assortment of flash cards, notebooks, sticky notes, page dividers, and the biggest pencil case full of every color of pen, sharpie, and highlighter your heart could ever desire. Ben stood and threw the remaining contents on the floor: many blankets, pillows, and enough snacks and water to feed them for the rest of winter.

 

“So what do ya say, bro?” Klaus placed a hand in his hip, clearly proud of their extensive haul.

 

“Study night?” Ben inquired, grinning.

 

Diego’s mouth gaped open, staring at the array of stuff that littered his floor. He was half expecting his siblings to start making fun of him and his study habits. Or to treat him like he’s inferior to them, something the brothers who weren’t in the room were famous for. Or he was waiting for them to give a similar “you could do so much better if you applied yourself more” speech. But this? This was not what he was expecting.

 

“S-study night.” Diego echoed, the corner of his lips twitching up ever so slightly.

 

“Great!”

Klaus clapped his hands, whisper shouting, “I’ll set up the nest!”

 

Klaus was quick at work, laying all nine blankets and quilts down atop of one another. He brought all the pillows onto the blankets, leaving a few against the bed for the boys to lean on. He threw the assortment of crackers,granola bars, Oreos (how did he get those???), and fruit snacks into a pile at the edge of the blanket nest, water on the opposing side. Once satisfied with his work, he took a step back.

 

“Our new humble abode awaits.”

 

Ben helped Diego gather his source materials, gently placing them in the middle of the blankets. He grabbed the pencil case and notebooks over with him and plopped himself down.

 

“Why don’t you get in the middle, Diego.” He smiled kindly up at his brother, leaning his head and motioning to his right. Diego quickly complied, Klaus stumbling to his seat at his left.

 

“So what I was thinking is, we make an outline.” Ben grabbed one of the notebooks and placed it in Diego’s hands.

 

“It’s an informative essay, right? We just have to talk about one of the significant events of the American Revolution. Which one did you choose?”

 

Diego started to actively tap the textbook that was in his lap in a violent staccato, “Uh. The Boston Massacre I think.”

 

“Okay good! That’s a good choice - there’s lots of information about it.” Ben nodded, his tone light and encouraging. Not patronizing like how Five was when he asked for his help with the quadratic formula the other day. 

 

“The report needs to be five paragraphs. So we need an introduction,” Ben grabbed a pencil and wrote _INTRO_ at the top of the page, a lone a few inches below giving him enough room to write one.

 

“Then we need three body paragraphs. So we need to find three separate or significant events that happened during the Boston massacre.” He wrote _BODY_ _1_ , _BODY_ _2_ , _BODY_ _3_ on the page right below the _INTRO_.

 

“And we finish off with a conclusion. It has to wrap up everything we talked about, but it can’t be the same as the intro. This is always the trickiest paragraph for me to write, but we have loads of time.”

 

Diego’s eyes closely followed Ben’s pencil with every swipe. The way Ben was explaining it, breaking it down as it it was a breeze, made the project seem a whole lot less daunting.

 

“How about we start reading and find the three things we’re gonna write about?” Klaus added, putting his hand on top of Diego’s violently tapping ones and gave a light squeeze. “You got this, I promise.”

 

“Sure, okay.” Diego croaked out, nodding. He opened the book right where he left off, page one of the Boston Massacre chapter.

 

Ben and Klaus watched as Diego nosedived himself into the book. They both noticed the way his brows would scrunch as he read, blinking violently. They saw the way he locked his jaw so tight it almost looked painful. His knees were bouncing, his whole body involved in the reading process. This obviously wasn’t working. After a few more beats of silence, Ben spoke up.

 

“Diego,” Said boy whipped his head up, soft brown eyes meeting with his very own.

 

“Let’s try something a bit different. Give me the book and I’ll give you this notebook,” He swiftly took the textbook from Diego and placed it in his lap, handing him the notebook with the outline, “and I’ll read it out loud and you follow along with me. When we find something we think we can work with, we’ll jot down some notes and fill out the outline. How does that sound?”

 

“Uh, good.” Diego agreed, picking up the pencil and tapping it against his thigh.

 

“Alright, where are we... ah yes.” Ben was off, reading the text in front of him aloud. As he continued on in the section, Diego’s body slowly started to release itself from the tension he didn’t even know he was holding. His shoulders were relaxed, his jaw unclenched and the pencil was longer tapping against his thigh, but held in a loose grip. He leaned closer to Ben, finding himself actually involved with what he was reading. He was understanding, he was even intrigued.

 

“There! Right there!” Diego exclaimed, pointing at the paragraph they stopped at. “That could work.”

 

Ben quickly scanned the paragraph before lifting his head and nodding. He smiled, “Yep, that could absolutely work. Good job, Di.”

 

“Here’s your notebook back!” Klaus handed Diego his outline and lightly gasped at what was no longer his original outline anymore.

 

Klaus had carefully made a real outline on the paper. He had organized it by color, the neat box for the introduction and thesis statement being blue. Then the three body paragraphs were in pink, and conclusion green. Klaus banded Ben a blue, pink, and green highlighter.

 

“I figured color coding could also help keep the ideas straight! So whenever you find information for the intro, like certain dates and stuff, you underline it in blue. When you see facts for your body paragraphs, underline it in pink. And so forth. I know that it’s definitely easy to get all the information mixed up, ya know? This’ll make it a bit easier to differentiate I hope.” Klaus rubbed the back of his neck, “You like it?”

 

“I-,” Diego cut himself off. He had gotten more work accomplished with his brothers in the last 15 minutes than he had for the last hour and then some. Ben and Klaus talked about school in a way that made him understand. They weren’t dumbing anything down, they weren’t trying to force him to try harder. They were simply offering alternative methods, trial and error. And so far there hasn’t been a single error.

 

Diego needed to thank them for this - for putting up with him. Grace’s help was never able to get through to him, nor Pogo’s. Five and Luther were a lost cause and their help only ended in insults and even more frustration. He had learned a long time ago that there was no hope for him. He was just the lazy, dumb brother.

“Thank you guys for doing this. I know I’m s-st-stupid but you-“

 

Diego was immediately cut off by Klaus’ finger at his lips, the curly haired kid shushing him “Nuh uh, nope. You stop that train of thought right there mister.”

 

“I agree, none of that.” Ben quipped, the two of them turned to face the smallest boy.

“Diego, it’s clear that you’re incredibly intelligent. You just need a little guidance in finding ways that work for you. There’s no shame in that. Every brain is different. Vanya had the entire circle of fifths memorized by the time she was 10 but can only do her times table up to 6. You are beyond capable of doing this, doing school. Don’t listen to Reginald, he’s never been right about a single thing in his damn life.”

 

“Benny dear, did you just, just” Klaus started to giggle, “swear?”

 

“I, uh.” His face suddenly split into a huge grin, light chuckles escaping from his chest. Diego followed suit, losing composure. The three of them erupted into laughter, their best attempts at keeping quiet failing.

 

“Okay! Okay!” Klaus panted, his hands grasping his stomach, “I’m in _PAIN_! I can’t...”

 

The other two’s laughter slowly started to subside as well, just a single chuckle here and there until eventually they all evened out into a comfortable silence.

 

“Let’s...keep going?” Diego asked lightly, looking over to his left and right.

 

“Yeah, yeah let’s do that.” Ben agreed, picking up the book at where they left off.

 

The three boys continued on, creating a comfortable rhythm. They munched away on snacks, working diligently. Diego was getting faster at spotting the important sections. Sometimes his enthusiasm caused him to leave out certain details here and there but Klaus was there to gently ask him to reread it again more carefully. Diego was receptive and found the errors, adjusting accordingly. The trio worked like this until the entire outline was completely filled, leaving absolutely no room left on the paper. He has so much information that the essay was basically written; all he had to do was write it down on paper.

 

He received a 99%, his first A+. AKA a higher grade than Luther. His brothers helped him celebrate with more impromptu bedroom parties filled with nothing but laughter and snacks. The even numbered boys would be alright.


End file.
